Management and Workers as a Team

"There can be no understanding between the hand and the brain unless the heart acts a mediator." Maria carries this theme throughout the movie, advocating peaceful negotiations between the head and the hands. The workers are angry about their conditions and the way they are treated; they want to revolt, refuse to continue working and begin rioting, if necessary. Maria preaches patience and nonviolence and she is their spiritual leader.

Maria tells the workers the story of The Tower of Babel, foreshadowing what will happen in Metropolis. In the Tower of Babel, Maria says that all the people (meaning the minds of those who had invented the tower and the workers who built the tower) spoke the same language, but they could not understand one another. At the end of the story, she emphasizes the coming of a negotiator, who can prevent the...